About David Singelyn
David Singelyn, CEO of American Homes 4 Rent, has stated that the company prioritizes the "human aspect" of natural disasters over assets, citing preparations for Hurricane Ian such as boarding up homes and creating safe places for employees. He said that for impacted tenants, the company would look for alternative housing or cancel their lease and return 100% of their security deposit. Singelyn also noted that the company assesses climate risk when acquiring properties and that it is "much better prepared" than it was five or ten years ago.
Singelyn has described the single-family rental industry as "revolutionized" by professional management and said the company is "part of the solution" to the housing shortage by building homes that are "meaningfully less expensive to rent compared to homeownership." He attributed rising demand for rentals to factors including remote work and a desire for mobility, and stated that COVID-19 "accelerated" a pre-existing trend. Regarding interest rates, Singelyn said they impact the company's cost of capital but noted the firm has "tremendous liquidity" and an in-house development program. He described evictions as a "last resort" and said the company saw "relatively favorable collection results" during the pandemic.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from David Singelyn's recent appearances.
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Transcript (13 segments)
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Narrator0:05
American Homes for Rent is a leading owner and builder of single-family rental homes, and thousands of its Florida properties were and are in Hurricane Ian's path. The company is currently assessing the damage so far. Diana Olick joins us now with the CEO David Singelyn. Hi, Dina.
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Diana Olick0:25
Dave, good to see you again. You're getting your folks on the ground, but you have roughly 12,000 properties directly or indirectly within the path of Hurricane Ian, and still both in Florida and South Carolina to come. What can you tell us about the damage that you've seen so far to your assets?
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David Singelyn0:41
You know, we were very, very fortunate. We thought that the hurricane was going to take a direct hit right into the Clearwater-Tampa area. We have, as you indicate, many assets there, about 3,000 assets, and the hurricane landed south of Tampa. As a result, damage so far, and we're very, very early in this evaluation process, as you indicate our people are just getting on the ground today and taking assessment of the damage out there, but what we've seen to date is primarily minor damage, downed trees, yard issues, some minor flooding in some of the houses, and a number of the telephone calls coming in are just about things like electricity. How do we get the electricity back on? But we're very, very fortunate that we did not take a direct hit into Tampa-Clearwater.
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Diana Olick1:39
You were fortunate this time, but I believe the first time we met was actually in Houston, where your home did sustain a lot of damage. Given the increase in extreme weather that we're seeing, whether it's from hurricanes, floodings, fire, drought, are you changing the company's strategy and where you build and acquire single-family rental homes due to climate change?
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David Singelyn1:59
Yeah. Two aspects there. One is we do look at where we are acquiring. We assess the climate risk in those areas, but we're also much better prepared today than we were five and ten years ago. We prepare. We have assets on site, so we prepare with wood and other things to board up houses. Sorry, our people started looking at Hurricane Ian four, five days ago, and we were boarding up homes, creating safe places for our employees to go, sending out communications to all of our residents to provide them storm watch information, how to reach us in times of emergency, and other places to turn, the American Red Cross and the EMA, for example.
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Diana Olick2:51
Dave, since we have you here, I have to talk about mortgage rates and interest rates. This week we saw the 30-year fixed cross 7%. Is that actually good for your single-family rental business because people can't buy homes at that higher rate?
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David Singelyn3:05
You know, you're absolutely right. The capital markets today are very, very volatile. We're very fortunate. We've got tremendous liquidity, and we continue to see strong demand for rentals. So it's a program that we have seen from the time that we started American Homes ten years ago. Demand continues to get stronger.
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Diana Olick3:30
What about the REIT atmosphere? REITs are really getting hammered in this rising rate environment.
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David Singelyn3:39
They are. The rates are interest-sensitive stock as an asset class, so our cost of capital is going up, and that's going to impact our ability to continue to grow. We're very fortunate in the fact that we do have liquidity. We have a significant amount of retained capital, and we have an in-house development program that's already primed for future growth into '23 and '24.
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Diana Olick4:03
Let me ask you one quick question, David. I'm very happy to hear that you did not suffer major damage in your properties.
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Diana Olick4:09
But for the renter who has found his or her home uninhabitable, what do you do? Do you continue collecting rent? Do you waive rent? How does that work?
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David Singelyn4:20
Yeah. Tyler, what we first prioritize is the human aspect of these disasters over the asset component. No different than what Diana was talking about with Harvey. Tenants that are impacted, we'll look for alternative housing for them. If we do not have alternative housing, we will cancel their lease and ensure that they get 100% of their security deposit back in the next day or two. We will forward it to our offices. Many of these individuals can't receive mail or checks as a result of the flood, so we will work with each and every one of them.
